Friday Night Live [NEW TIME!] ***Q&A with Mr&Mrs Your Calvinnist***

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Now, let's get back to the podcast. Live from the Theo Shed in beautiful Callahan, Florida, it's

Friday Night! Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience.

And welcome to Friday Night Live with Mr. and Mrs. Your Calvinist.

Hey everybody, it's good to see you tonight. We are excited. Mary, it's good to see you back with us,

Mary. Yes, very much. And we're excited that we are starting now at a new time.

We're doing this a little bit differently. We asked you guys a couple of weeks ago if you thought the time change would be a good thing.

And some of you said yes. And we see some of you have even mentioned, like Crystal, that it's better.

This is, it allows you to watch it live instead of having to watch the recording. So yes, you are

NutraCoach. You are the live studio audience. So thank you for joining us tonight. And before we even started, there were some great questions that came in.

Jim Chatfield asked this question, have you ever done a segment on deconstruction? Now, on the history of this show, it was before it was your

Calvinist podcast, we used to have conversations with a Calvinist. And I did an episode of conversations with a

Calvinist with a friend of mine who was a former atheist turned Christian missionary, a local missionary.

He's in Georgia. He does like local missions and evangelism. And his name, oh goodness,

I know his name. And it just, it just ran out of my head. But anyway, Rich Suplita, thank you. He's a

University of Georgia professor. He was an atheist, became a Christian. He and I did a show on deconstruction and Jennifer, would you mind making a note?

I'll put a link to that in the description, but that's been a while back. I may redo that.

I may come back around and talk about that again. So if you have a specific question about deconstruction, please send that to me.

It sounds like a good golf cart. Yeah. Yeah. That might be a good golf cart episode just to get out there on the, on the ride and talk about deconstruction.

That would be fun. Also got another question for slice of bread asked me, which is better alien or predator.

This is not even a question. My friend predator is the superior film. Predator is eighties machismo to the max.

It is awesome. You've got Jesse, the body Ventura. Notice I mentioned him before I mentioned

Arnold Schwarzenegger. You've got Apollo Creed in the movie, Carl Weathers.

You, you've got, all of these awesome guys, the guy who played,

Billy, I forget his name, but he's an awesome, actor. In fact, he was in best of the best part two as Philip Reese brother.

It's just an awesome movie. So yeah, predators, the better film, Jennifer, what do you think? I was going to say predator, but I don't think

I've seen alien. Oh, okay. So yeah. All right. I don't think I'd say about alien Sigourney Weaver's awesome.

Yeah. Okay. Which reminds me of a funny joke. That's what I thought of too.

Okay. So years ago, Jeff Foxworthy had this great joke where, he said, he said, you have to be careful what you say to your wife.

Like you don't leave a movie and say, man, that's Sigourney Weaver's an attractive woman because later you'll be eating meatloaf and you say, honey, this meatloaf is a little dry.

Maybe Sigourney Weaver can make you make it for you. Maybe Sigourney Weaver make you a meatloaf.

So now every time Jennifer and I are kind of joking with each other and if she wants to get a little snarky, she'll say something like, well, maybe

Sigourney Weaver can, can clean your socks. Or be your co -host on your

Calvinist. Yeah. Maybe Sigourney Weaver will be your co -host on, on the show, which is totally dumb, but it's funny that that's where it comes from.

It comes from a Jeff Foxworthy bit. We've always loved comedy and we've always loved joking together. And so don't take it too seriously.

We don't. Jennifer better Kirk or Picard. I don't have an opinion on this cause

I've never watched Star Trek. I'll be honest with you. I'm not a Trekkie. I'm a star Wars, not a Star Trek guy.

So I will simply say this. Picard is a statesman, but Kirk is the

OG. So Kirk is the OG. So that's, that's my answer. All right. Okay. So cool. Boy, we just getting right into it tonight, right into the silliness.

Okay. Very quickly, a couple of announcements I have on my handy sheet here.

Always looking forward to Friday night live. Oh, thank you. His mercy is more. It's good to see you tonight. I'm more of a space balls fan.

Absolutely. Space balls the best. Yes, absolutely. So don't forget our

Bible reading plan is available on Keith Foskey .com. I'm going to keep mentioning that tonight. We read our

Bible reading with the kids, which was Mark chapter two. No. Yeah. It was Mark chapter two tonight.

And we enjoyed that. And that was a good, a good time.

So I want to encourage you if you don't, if you're not reading the scripture regularly, go to my website, download that and take a walk through the gospels with Jesus in 2025.

I think it would be an encouragement to you. And also go online, go on YouTube sometimes and look up the narrated and have it read to you in a different, you know, that's,

I like to do that too. Yeah. Maybe a translation you don't normally read or listen to. It might, might, you know, give you some ideas of things you haven't thought of before or tell it to you in a way that you haven't thought of it before.

And sometimes we'll listen to the dramatized version with the kids. So those are, those are interesting.

Yeah. So definitely, definitely check that out. Don't forget also that the dangerous friends conference is being hosted in Monclova, Ohio by clear truth.

And I'm going to be there March 14th and 15th. I won't be speaking, but I will be doing podcasting there. The speakers are

Michael Foster, Rosario Butterfield, Jamie Bambrick, Steven Whitlow, Steve Dease, several others.

There's even a talk of a pretty big extra guy coming. I don't want to mention his name yet because we don't know for sure, but if you're interested in coming, use the promo code, your

Calvinist 25, your Calvinist 25. All right. A question keeps coming up about latent flowers and provisionism.

Okay. I'm going to answer it. Prepped for eternity is asking this question. As many of you know,

I have a good relationship with latent flowers. He's been on the show several times and I do count latent as a brother. I do think he is very wrong on the subject of Calvinism.

I think some of the things that he believes about Calvinism are inaccurate. And I do think his, his view of original sin is, is absolutely wrong.

He he's obviously not Augustinian. He obviously does not agree with the Augustinian view of original sin, which some people would say places him in the position of Pelagian.

And he and I've actually had that. We had that conversation in a parking lot outside of a

Japanese restaurant in actually no, yeah, it was Japanese. We had sushi. So it was outside of a

Japanese restaurant in Tullahoma, Tennessee. And we talked about that very thing.

And again, I affirm latent as a brother, though I think he has some some ideas that could lead him into some very, very bad directions and some very dangerous places.

So I, I, I've talked to him about those things. I've disagreed with them and he disagrees with me. But at this point, he still believes that we're justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

And and the things that I think are that are, that are dangerous, he,

I don't think he has stepped over the line, but I do think he's up against the line in many areas.

So that, that's my answer. Can you pull that comment and crystal right there? Cause that's what we, we were joking about today.

Late needs to spend more time with toddler. Absolutely. Crystal, you are not wrong.

I posted a video today with Sarah McLaughlin singing, we are born in a set.

I said, that's, that's the provisionist whole anthropology right there is they believe men are born innocent.

And that is not what the Bible teaches. You can jump in anytime.

I'm glad that you're being more like you're wanting to jump in more. You guys encourage her cause she's like, yeah, yeah.

It's an hour earlier. So like jump in lady. Well, one of the questions we got, we were going to talk about later kind of goes with this.

Someone wrote in and said, should a Calvinist man pursue a provisionist woman with the intent of beginning a relationship that may hopefully lead to marriage?

Ooh. So we're going to jump to the last question first. Where are we at? 11 minutes and 51 seconds.

I like to keep the timestamps cause that helps me later. Should a Calvinist man pursue a provisionist woman?

Man, that's a great question. Let me say this. I have said, and I continue to say that where you stand on the doctrine of predestination, where you stand on, on, on many of the doctrines that relate to Calvinism, particularly the five points of Calvinism.

They are not absolutely essential for understanding the gospel that you are a sinner, that there is only one savior, that Jesus Christ is the only savior and that you only are saved by grace alone through faith alone in him alone.

So a person can be wrong about Calvinism and still be saved. So let me be clear about that.

So I do not believe if a, if a, if a Calvinist married a provisionist, that they would in that be marrying an unbeliever.

That's where I cannot do a wedding between a believer and an unbeliever. I don't believe that it is within the right.

I don't believe it's right to do. I'll marry two unbelievers cause I believe it falls under the category of common grace, but I won't marry a believer to an unbeliever.

So I'll marry two believers. I'll marry two unbelievers, which I have done both, but I will not marry a believer to an unbeliever.

But if, if, if, if, if, if a couple disagreed on, on Calvinism, but they both affirmed

Christ as their Lord and savior, I wouldn't say they were at that point in a, in a, in a condition of a believer marrying an unbeliever, but I would counsel them very cautiously to understand this.

There, there have been several times in, in our church where, where there have been situations where I have seen disagreements over this theology.

And obviously I'm not gonna mention names, but you know, probably some people that I'm thinking about where this theology has created tension in marriages.

I can think of four right off the top of my head where either the husband was, you know, convinced of Calvinism and the wife rejected it or, or the wife accepted it and then the husband rejected it.

And, and it can be a divisive topic in a marriage. And so, um,

I would, I would, I would want to counsel this couple to, uh, not necessarily to make her a

Calvinist or not, but to help them understand where the, um, where the differences are.

And, and, and the biggest thing is they need to be able to worship together. I don't think it's healthy when a husband goes to one church and a wife goes to another church.

I always counsel against that. If there's, if there's a, and I, and I counsel, don't get upset ladies, but I counsel that the woman is to follow her husband.

And if he's leading, especially if he's leading and leading to church and taking you to church, you should go with him, uh, follow his lead and, and submit to his leadership.

Um, that is not to say you can't have an opinion on the subject, but as far as, um, you don't make his life miserable if you disagree with him.

I just, I just finished premarital counseling with my daughter. Okay. This is my oldest daughter, the first daughter

I'm giving away in marriage. And we just finished, I'm doing the ceremony. They asked me to do the counseling.

I did premarital counseling. And I sat down with her and my, and my future son -in -law. And I said, the

Bible says that you're a submit to him and everything. Are you, are you ready to do that? Do you trust him enough to do that? Do you trust him enough to submit to him?

And if you don't, then you're not ready to get married. If you don't trust him to lead you and to lead you well, then you're not ready to get married.

I said that to my own daughter. So I would say that to this, to this person as well. So, um, so there you go.

That's, that's our, uh, that, that's my answer to the question. And thank you for reminding me that that was actually, it jumps right into that.

Okay. Uh, before I get to more questions and thank you, Scott, for mentioning that.

Congratulations. We're, we're, we're very excited. Our, our, our new son -in -law's name is

Rhett Butler. So our daughter is going to be Ashley Butler.

He is so awesome. Yes, he is. He was out. Um, he was out until 10 o 'clock last night working on her car because she's having difficulty in her car and he's a handyman.

So, so praise the Lord for that. The wedding is February 28th.

So we won't do a live. Obviously we won't be doing a live on February 28th. That's a Friday night. Uh, we will not be doing a live show on February 28th.

Be praying for us as we prepare for that. All right.

Um, want to talk about something that's not a question. We, we've got plenty of questions to get to, but I want to talk about something that's not a question.

Uh, something that was happening over on X the last few days, there was a video that went out from, uh, our intrepid vice president, uh,

JD Vance. And this, this video caused quite a stir on X and caused quite a few differences of opinion.

And, um, and I, I opined on X and, uh, got some, got some folks interested, got some folks riled up.

Um, but I want to, I want to share the video. I want to then share the comments that I saw and I want to make a few comments about this video.

So here, here's the video from vice president, JD Vance. Old school.

And I think it's a very Christian concept by the way, that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community.

And then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.

A lot of the far left has completely inverted that they seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders.

That is no way to run a society. Okay. So Vance said that.

And immediately people started to lose their mind and said, Nope, that's not Christian. It's not Christian to say, to love your family first.

It's not Christian to say, to love your community first. It's not Christian to put categories like that.

And, and, and so I was on, um, I was on X and I saw this man who

I do not know. Um, and he, well, there was actually two posts.

I'm going to put them both on the screen. The first post was a guy who said, wait in Christian thought, if your child is in one hand and a stranger's in the other, what are you supposed to do?

Meaning which one do you prioritize? And this man named Joe Ash Thomas, who described himself as having attended the, or one of the premier conservative evangelical schools or evangelical seminaries in the

United States. Like he really built up his own stock. Uh, Joe Ash Thomas said in a Christian, in a

Christianity that looks like Jesus of Nazareth, you would love the stranger first that you would love the stranger before your own child.

And then he goes on to say, if you don't like that, that's okay. Just be honest that you're not ready to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow

Jesus. Okay. Joe Ash Thomas. I want to, I want to explain something to you. There's a Greek word for what you've just said baloney because that's what it is.

What you just said is absolute bupkis. It's baloney. It's garbage. It's, it's, it's, it's liberal slop.

The idea that I don't, I'm not able to prioritize my own love. God prioritizes his own love.

He says of Israel in the old Testament, I always point this, this verse out to people in Amos chapter three, it says, when

God is speaking to Israel, he says, you have I known of all the nations of the earth, meaning the word know there means to love.

It means to prioritize in regard to how he loves the nations.

He says, I have put Israel first. In fact, the first question of tonight, I'm just going to jump to this right ahead because the first question of tonight is the idea of God not having partiality.

And this is what the question, well, you read the question. If someone were to charge God with partiality regarding his distribution of grace or favor, since he gives it to some and not others, what would you say?

Is it of the domain of God's good nature and free will? How does the gift of grace work without causing

God to be partial in judgment? Okay. Right there. They're asking the question. How is it that God can say that he's not partial?

If in fact, he demonstrates grace and love to some, and he doesn't demonstrate that same grace and love to say the unbeliever, let's leave

Calvinism off the table for a moment. We know that those who believe are the objects of God's mercy and grace. Those who do not believe are the objects of God's divine wrath, which is an eternal wrath, leaving

Calvinism off the table completely. Just considering that truth that I just said that I think all Christians would agree with.

And the question is, well, how can God be partial? If he says he's not partial, God is not partial in the sense that God is not unjust in his choosing.

He tells Israel this. He says, I didn't choose you because you were big. I didn't choose you because you were powerful.

I set my affection upon you for no other reason than I chose you out of the nations.

And that is God's prerogative to do that. Romans chapter nine, I will have mercy on whom

I have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion. God has the ability to do that without being unjust, without being partial to somebody because of their position or because of their familial line or because of their family or because of their stock or because of their abilities.

God chooses based upon his internal counsel and divine nature, not because of who we are or what we have done.

And so all of that, all of that is to say that God does have a priority.

He prioritizes his people. He tells us that it's very clear. So when

J .D. Vance is saying this, he's saying, yes, there is actually a priority.

And there's a phrase that's gone out today. I know Doug Wilson said it, maybe you saw it. But the phrase is ordo amaris or, excuse me, ordo amoris from the word amoris meaning love, the order of love.

And you think about like the ordo salutis is the order of salvation. And then we have like the order of God's decrees and things like that, but which is like superlapsarianism and infralapsarianism, those arguments.

And what order did God do his decrees? Well, the order amoris is the idea that there is actually a priority of love.

And we would say that, I would say that I love her more than I love you.

And if you can't get that, then you're a knucklehead.

I mean, really, you know, you can't get the fact that I love my wife more than I love you. Even if you're a

Christian, I love my wife more than I love you. There's an order to that. There's actually a priority in this.

And now there's another side to this where someone would say, and I would, I know there's the argument, well,

I'm in a different relationship with Christians than I am with non -Christians. And I have non -Christians in my family and I have

Christians that are not in my family. And I've said this to my church. Like I've said to my church, yes, there's a sense in which

I have a stronger bond with my Christian brothers in my church than I do with like my family.

That's not in Christ, my extended family. We have a blood relationship with them, but we have a blood in Christ relationship with those in the church.

So there are distinctions that are to be made, but there's still an order of priority. And my primary priority is the priority of my family.

And I think that's what JD Vance was, was trying to say. Now, one could argue, you know, that, uh, that can be pushed too far where we absolutely ignore people outside of our family, but that's not what he was saying.

And that's not what I'm saying. In fact, I made this post and some people saw it.

Some people agreed, some people disagreed, but this was the post that I put in regard to this whole subject.

I said this, I said, a man making the members of his home a priority is in the very qualifications for an elder.

If he doesn't care for his home, how can he care for the members of his church? That's what the scripture says.

This proves there's a priority for a godly man that begins in the home. What is it?

What is the, what is the qualification for an elder? He must manage his home. Well, because if he doesn't manage his home, well, he can't manage the church.

There's a priority for the man of God that he actually prioritizes his family first before he can go and prioritize the church.

So, um, that's, these are just, again, I wanted to throw these thoughts out there because it was, it was a big deal on X the last few days.

And I don't go around just commenting on everything, but on this particular subject, I think we can, to say, well, what

J .D. Vance said is un -Christian. No. What J .D. Vance said is simply talking in the categories of priority.

And my priority is number one. And my kids know that too, by the way. How many times have I told our kids,

I love you, but your mom comes first. And by the way, if your kids come first in your marriage and your spouse comes second, then your marriage is out of order.

Because I tell them the same thing. That's right. She's first for me. I'm first for her.

The kids are valuable and lovable and we love them. But one day my boys are going to leave their father and mother.

They're going to cleave under their wife and they're going to become one flesh with their wife. And they're going to create this.

And I want to model for them what that's supposed to look like.

And that means she's my priority. And if that doesn't make sense to people, I don't understand why not.

That's the very thing God told me to do. He said to love her, like Christ loves the church and that she is to respect me as the church submits to Christ, Jesus submitted to me.

That mutual relationship of love and respect is supposed to be the picture of the gospel.

The husband representing Christ, laying his life down for his wife, giving himself up for her, washing her with the water of the word, sanctifying her and all those things.

And the wife submitting to the husband as the church submits into Christ. This is all a picture of the gospel.

And so the idea of, well, you know, I'm supposed to love a stranger more than I love my children.

No, that's, that's, that's kooky talk and we need to recognize it for what it is.

But going back to answer the question again about partiality, God is not unjustly, does not show unjust partiality.

That's the answer to the question. And he, even in Calvinism, it's even less

Calvinism. If we add that back into the conversation, God does not choose us based on anything we do.

God chooses us based according to the counsel of his own will. Therefore it's not partiality. He's not choosing us based on something we do.

He's based, he's choosing us based, based upon his will. And that's not the same or that's not unjust or impartial.

All right. Uh, now, whoo, I, I, I kind of got a little, uh, got a little, uh, talk, talked a lot there.

Um, I like when you get fired up. Yeah. A little bit, a little bit. All right. Okay. Okay.

So next question. Okay. Would you be willing to share a brief summary of the restoration movement churches and where you assess them being in error and related?

I also discovered that the particular church that prompted this question doesn't consider Deacon to be a biblical office.

So they refused to appointment to that role. We've only got elders. So input on that too.

Okay. All right. So, um, I'm, I'm, I'm really glad this question came in, um, because it gets me, it gives me the opportunity to, to talk about history, which is one of my favorite subjects, but also to address a movement that I haven't,

I haven't really dealt with. I've I've very seldom put them in my denominational videos. I very seldom bring them up on my show.

Um, the, if you don't know what the restoration movement is, the restoration movement is the movement out of which spawned the churches of Christ.

And if you're not familiar with the churches of Christ, there are some very specific, um, um, very specific markers for the churches of Christ.

Uh, number one, uh, historically traditional churches of Christ have, have, have focused on, um, non -instrumental music and worship.

So acapella worship. Now that's not everywhere. And some church, some have gone away from that. So I'm, I'm, I'm saying traditionally and long held beliefs, but not something that's you're going to find in all of them.

Um, but also, and this is the big one, a, a, a priority on baptism for the remission of sins.

And it's very specifically worded baptism for the remission of sins.

Um, and they call that baptismal remission, which oftentimes is confused with what we might refer to as baptismal regeneration.

Baptismal regeneration is that you are born again in the water of baptism. That is where you are born again in the labor of baptism.

Um, theirs is, is, is not so much a focus on that, but, but rather a focus on the fact that when you are in the water, you are going in and coming out with your sins forgiven.

That, that, that, that, that, that is the, the washing away of your sins.

And that's where the remission takes place. And, um, they base this of course on Acts two 38, which, uh, says repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy spirit. Actually, repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

And you received the gift of the Holy spirit. That is the key verse in the passage or in the, in the movement.

Now let's go back in history. Where does the movement come from? Um, Barton stone,

Alexander and Thomas Campbell and Walter Scott, not Willard Scott.

I used to get that. He's a joke as well. You're 104 years old today. Not, not

Willard Scott. Uh, um, so, so you have, um, those men who all came from different backgrounds.

They, uh, I think, I think some out of the Presbyterian church, some out of the Baptist church, but they came together and they, they believed that they were restoring the ancient gospel.

That that's a phrase that was used. They were restoring the ancient gospel, which was a baptism for the remission of sins.

That is, according to them, the restoration of the ancient gospel, what was missing in Presbyterian churches, according to them, what was missing in Baptist churches, according to them was a baptism for the remission of sins.

And so that becomes known as the restoration movement.

Right. Um, now, now let me see. I see, I see somebody just jumped in,

John. He said, he says, pastor and restoration movement. The other main mark is autonomous polity within the church.

Okay. All right, John, are you, I'm assuming he's saying he's a pastor reading that same way.

Okay. So John, I I'm, I'm glad you're here because I want to make sure I'm right and not wrong about this pastor and restoration movement church.

The other mark, uh, I would say is autonomous polity within the church. We're a denomination that doesn't like to call ourselves a domination.

I was actually getting there, John. Uh, thank you for, for jumping on. I appreciate you, uh, speaking in, um, hopefully everything

I've said so far has been correct. And yes, the autonomy of the church is, is very important and, um, uh, a tendency towards an opposition to creeds and confessions.

Um, one of the things that I've heard from those movements are things like, uh, we don't want any creeds, uh, no creed, but Christ no book, but the

Bible that kind of, and, and, and, uh, a teaching. Okay. So, um, you have the, the polity, which was just mentioned by John, uh, the po the, the, the governance of the church, um, the autonomy of the church, then you have the, uh, the, the view of baptism.

Uh, but going back to the, the stone at Campbellite movement, that actually was, there was a, there were different streams that came out of that.

And I know more about the one stream because our church used to be part of the disciples of Christ. The disciples of Christ is the far liberal side of the restoration movement, but still part of the restoration movement heritage.

Um, the disciples of Christ are to the churches of Christ. What the PC USA is to the

PCA, right? Like, like, like they're the far left, the very liberal side. Um, that's the, that, that's the, the difference.

There's also like the independent Christian church, um, which is

I've always described it as sort of like in the middle, middle of the road. Um, cause you have the churches of Christ, which tend to be more conservative.

The, the disciples of Christ tend to be more liberal than you have the independent church, independent Christian church. So like, if you're in a town and you see like main street

Christian church or, um, you know, uh, Jacksonville Christian church or Arlington Christian church, anytime you see

Christian church, it's usually associated with the restoration movement.

Um, where, where would we disagree? We would disagree, uh, uh, specifically on the doctrine of baptism.

And I'll tell you a quick story. Uh, you'll remember this. There, there was a friend of mine who, uh, was very strongly committed to the, the restoration movement.

And he was going to Johnson Bible college, which is a restoration, which teaches restoration movement theology.

And he came back from college. He came back on like a visit and he was visiting the church and he and I were just talking and I had a bracelet and my bracelet said

EPH two three eight, which was Ephesians two 38. I'm sorry. No Ephesians two, eight to 10.

Sorry. It was a, it was an EPH two, eight to 10. And it was for by grace.

Are you saved through faith and that not of yourself. It is the gift of God and not of works. Lest any man should boast. That was, that was what

I had on my arm. And he looked at my arm and he said, well, if I had one of those, it would say ax two 38, repent and be baptized for the remission of sin.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy spirit. And that led into a conversation between the two of us about the question of how baptism functions.

Does baptism function as a work that we must do to accomplish our salvation?

Is, is that what baptism is or is baptism the response to a, of a heart that has already believed on the gospel and been saved?

And of course, I would take the second position that baptism is a response of a heart that has been saved, not the cause of salvation.

All right. So John's jumped in. I want to see what he says here. Yeah. Good summary of the history definitely lends itself to a ton of variety church to church, often hard to nail down the common threads of the restoration movement aside for baptism and informal credo positions.

Great. Okay. Well, I feel like I did good if we got an expert. I want to be fair.

Yeah. I obviously we would disagree on some things. Um, uh, John as a pastor from that movement, maybe one day we could talk about a bow tie dialogue, uh, because, um, seemed like a reasonable guy.

And I'm, I'm always up to try to interact with folks with whom

I may disagree just so that I can learn more and make sure that I don't misrepresent folks. So thank you.

Thanks for jumping on tonight. I really appreciate that. All right. Uh, that is number two. I forgot to write down the time.

I did. You got it. You're awesome. You're the best. Okay. All right, well let's move on. We're getting through these.

Let's go. Okay, let's go. Well, this next one is long, so I won't read the whole, the whole question, but what, um, what this viewer or listener was talking about is that the church, the original church that she had came from was a, um, they believe in the fivefold ministry and spoken tongues with no interpretation believes in deliverance.

And the pastor's wife is also a pastor. So she came from a train, train wreck. And then she, she left that church.

She came from a train wreck. Y 'all. I agree a hundred percent, but I just, that just tickled me that you just, he's like, well, she was, she was in a bad, hot garbage.

And then where she was was hot garbage. I agree. She left after a few months to attend a non -denominational church, but the pastor of that church took her by surprise because he went to preach at the former church that doesn't hold the good doctrine.

Okay. So she saw her current pastor go back to the old church that she was at. And now she's kind of wondering, okay.

All right. Okay. And then they allow the worship leaders use many songs from Hillsong, Bethel and elevation who also have heretical doctrine.

Okay. So that's kind of where I'm up to date. So with, with those issues, that's the first question is like, what, what should

I do? Should I speak to my pastor about these concerns or should I just leave? And part two of it is the, the women's group is starting to do vision boards and she has told them like, look, that's not biblical.

That that's not. I mean what the Bible teaches that we should be doing this. And the women have just said, this is what we're doing.

I've told her not to be judgmental, not to be judgmental. Yeah. So it's kind of a mixture of two separate issues with this church.

Like at what point do you just say that that's it? Or should she try to reform the church or no, no, should she start, should she hang on to hope that,

I don't know. That that's the question. No, that's great. And I appreciate it. I, you, you, you did a good job today of helping me summarize these.

So thank you. Nice. Sweet. And this one was the long one cause we actually got two emails from this person and we want to thank you for emailing us.

Hopefully we'll give you some thoughts to help you. Cause I've thought a lot about this today about how, how we could give you some sound advice.

It is, it is almost always my recommendation that before anyone leave a church, they should have a conversation with the pastor and let them know what the issues are.

And, um, my reason for that is that one, I very rarely recommend that people leave a church unless things are just really, really bad.

And, um, you know, because there's just so much lily pad hopping people just hopping from one lily pad to the next and, um, always searching for something they're never going to find.

And that's a church that dots all of their eyes and crosses all their teas and does everything the way they think it should be done. It's just not going to happen.

People aren't wired that way. People aren't built that way. And I don't think churches function that way. That's why we have a multitude of gifts, right?

And, and, and when you come into a church, you bring your gifts into that church and you function together, but it's not always going to be what you think it should be.

And, and as long as things are seeking out, um, seeking to serve

Christ, then, then I say, you know, try to stick it out if you can. However, big caveat here, every once in a while, there's going to be times where I just say it's time to leave.

And, um, I'll, I'll tell you a story. I love to tell stories, don't I? I'm a, I'm a story. I'm a storyteller by nature.

I love to hear you tell stories. You make me feel good and I'm thankful. So, uh, guys, get yourself one of these.

I promise you will not regret it. If you, not this one, of course, this one's mine, but, but, uh, a good wife is more precious than rubies for sure.

Um, but there was a, there was a guy, um, a couple of years ago, we, we must've exchanged it.

We must have exchanged 50 emails back and forth because he was in a church where the pastor was, was hyper charismatic, was, um, fully given over to the most extreme of excesses in regard to what the charismatic movement has to offer.

Not just, not just that he believed in the gifts, but just would, would, would circumvent the authority of scripture, uh, to teach and would, and, and, and would just teach the most crazy things.

And this guy would email me. He would say, what should I do? And my first admonition to him is the admonition I give everyone.

Talk to him, talk to him, talk to him. And after he talked to him a few times, and, and, and, and this guy was in a position where he was actually, uh, teaching like a men's group and he would try to teach the men, right.

And the pastor would rebuke him during the lesson and like, would stop him. Did I ever tell you about this?

No. Okay. I mean, I, uh, uh, it, it, it went on. I'm like I said, I must've exchanged 50, exchanged 50 emails with this person.

It went back and forth for like six months and about six or seven emails in,

I just said, bro, it's time to go. You have done everything that you can do.

And eventually if, if the church is, is, is, is, is preaching false doctrine.

If they're, if they're teaching kooky things and they're doing things that are just outlandishly wrong, it's time to move on.

Um, I will say this. I don't know what a vision board is. We Googled it. We Googled it.

That's right. We Googled what a vision board is. It seemed odd.

Um, uh, it, it, I didn't know what it was manifesting your desires.

Yeah. Five years. Yeah. It was one of those things where I was like, this seems really weird. Um, and what, what, what really got my attention and this is important is what got my attention is when you said you went and tried to talk to the people about it and you were rebuffed.

There was no one who seemed to give you any, maybe not the word encouragement, but maybe, um, no one, no one seemed to be concerned about your concerns.

It would be one thing if your concerns were unreasonable, but I don't think your concerns are.

So at this point, it may be time to look for a new church. And you know, I don't say that lightly because guys,

I don't, I just don't say that lightly. I, I, but yeah, uh, Mary just said this said it's new age.

Again, we looked it up. It seemed that way. Seemed very new agey. And if that's the case, um, you know, run forest, run that somebody said in the comments, right?

Just, just get up out of there. Um, and if you need help, you have my email address.

Obviously you've emailed me a couple of times, send me a message and we will be happy to help you find a church in your area.

Um, so that's where I'm at. Again, I very rarely recommend that to people. I'm not the guy who says, you know, run at the first sign of danger, but in this particular case might, might in fact be the best thing.

Yeah. This is not one thing. This is, this is a, this is a pretty big deal and several big deals.

All right. We're going to throw in a couple of quick breaks. I'm going to take a breakup for my voice and we'll come back and answer some more questions in just a moment.

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Oh, okay. We we just love to read you guys' comments and we're reading them during, during the, during the break.

Chuck will time for you. That's great. I think that was funny. And Scott mentioned

Justin Peters pointing the lady to Justin Peters. I'm happy to do that.

Yeah. Justin Peters can help you regarding things where we're wackiness and some of the charismatic charismatic chaos has come into the churches and you know, check him out if you don't know who he is.

He's supposed to have been on the show last year. We had a scheduled day and he ended up having an emergency and unable to do it.

So hopefully this year we'll be able to get him on the show and look forward to that. All right, miss

Jennifer, let's go on. It's at the 47 minute mark. Let's go to the next question.

I was wondering how to confront my friends and family who, who believe they are

Christians, but they're not bearing any fruit. They're not, they're far from the truth.

Okay. This is a, this is a difficult question because there's, there's two types of, of, of sort of a family event.

That we have to deal with as, as Christians. And family event, family evangelism is hard anyway.

Because it tends to be harder to talk about things that are difficult. The closer people are to you.

This is why sometimes being an open air preacher or open air evangelist can actually be easier because even though you're talking to people you never met before, you're never going to see those people again.

So going out and preaching on a street corner, while it takes a certain boldness, it also provides a certain anonymity because you're not going to, you know, even if somebody spits on you or throws something at you, who cares?

You're not going to see that guy again. But when you're talking to your cousin, you're going to see every other week at the family get together or whatever.

The relationship is different. And, and so it, it, it does come with its own set of difficulties.

And so evangelizing family is something that we have over the years, we've really worked on in our, in our life, how, how to do it.

One of the things that we have done is try to put good literature in the hands of our families. I have,

I have personally written letters of the gospel to give to family members who I knew were not saved.

I we've, we've, we've invested in books to give to them, to ask them to read even videos for, for family members that we know are just not readers.

Right. And one year we even produced a DVD. Yeah. It was a Christmas DVD where we, where we did a huge family album.

Like we took all of our family pictures and, and, and put all the pictures on the DVD and we gave them to all of our aunt and uncles.

But it was, it was, I don't know how many of you remember when DVDs had a menu. And so if you, if you on the menu, it was like family album, but then there was like a sub menu.

And one of the videos in the sub menu was me talking about the gospel. And I just said,

Hey, I made a little extra video and I put it on here. Like this was before YouTube. Right. So like I, it wasn't just like, like I could just post a

YouTube video. I made a video about the gospel and I put it on that family DVD.

And I just asked my family, I remember watching it with my uncle. And he sat through the whole thing, listened to the whole thing.

And I was grateful that I knew that through that he had heard the gospel. So that, but that's, that's not really getting to your question, but I'm just kind of dealing with the issue of like how to engage family.

There's, there's different ways. It doesn't always have to be one way. The other thing is, okay, what about the person in your family who says they're but is not a, uh, is not behaving like a

Christian? Well, we have that too. And, um, we've had some interesting instances with that.

Uh, uh, I remember one time we had a family member who was living in a very sinful condition,

I mean, living in outright sin and he called me one day and he called himself

Christian. He's living in outright sin. I knew about his situation. Now, some of you may think I'm a jerk for what the story. No, I know what you're going to say.

Am I a jerk? No. Okay. But I, but he, my family member called me and said, um, hey,

I want to, can you tell me what study Bible I should get? And I said, um,

I said, dude, you're living in sin right now. You're living in, in rebellion against God.

I said, I said, study Bible is not what you need. You need to repent. Now y 'all might not like that answer, but I was,

I saw that as an opportunity to speak into his life. Did, did he need a Bible? Sure.

But, but, but his greatest need was not to, to, to, to learn how to parse out the specifics of Greek words.

It was dude, you need to repent of your sin. You're living in rebellion against God. You don't need to study

Bible to teach you that. Right. Like, like you're looking for a way to circumvent the end run to what the real problem is, and that's that you're living in sin.

So, um, sometimes being bold like that can be helpful. Uh, uh,

I'd like to say that he just turned around and repented. He did not. He, uh, he, he, but he did listen to me.

He didn't just hang up the phone. He's like, you know, well, you're right. You know, I mean, he listened. Um, but looking for opportunities to be bold, um, not necessarily be a jerk.

And if you think I was a jerk, I wasn't trying to be this person. I loved him and he loved me and he loved me afterwards, but I was honest with him.

Honesty helps. Straightforward speech helps. We're, we're, we're a society that has gotten away from straight speech.

Everything has to be nuanced to a hilt. We, nobody will just speak straight to one another anymore.

So, um, that is that that's part of, uh, that's just part of our society.

We're afraid to speak straight to each other. So, um, just pray the Lord would give you that opportunity, that open door or just that.

Um, sometimes tragedy, like in my case, um, my mom passed away in April of, of last year and she was sick, pretty critical from January till April.

But, um, my sister is an atheist and we spent a lot of time talking. I mean, uh, uh,

I don't know. I mean, I'm praying that the scriptures and what everything we talked about in the experience that we've lived through would come.

She would come to a knowledge. I mean, she would, that Jesus would save her, but, but you don't know really.

Sometimes I think tragedy can come in and give you an opportunity. Look for opportunities to talk. I agree with that a hundred percent.

And I'm thankful for the, what, what that, you know, we, we, it's hard to say we're not thankful for tragedy, but we're thankful for what tragedy can do.

Cause it can open doors for conversations that may not have had been had in other times.

Um, so, so, so there's that. Um, but again, the, the other side of it is, um, if you have it,

Thank you Lindsay. She said, sorry for your loss. Yeah, it was tough, tough time and still is.

You don't really get over grief. You, you learn to manage your life around the new, the experience of grief and the new normal.

So it's, it's, it's been difficult and praise God. I'm thankful that God's been gracious. Um, so, but looking back again, uh, if, if, if, if you have a family member who is here's, here's the real issue.

If you have a family member, who's a hypocrite, they're saying they're a Christian and they're, they're, but they're living a life that is in, in, in rebellion against God.

It might be necessary to call them out, but if they're, but if they're, if they're, if they're saying they're a

Christian, but they're living in ignorance, then they may just need to be instructed.

So in that sense, it really depends on the person depends on the situation. If you got a person who's, you know, going to church every

Sunday, but, but during the week is living like the devil and, and, and, and, and then goes to church on Sunday, that's a problem.

But if you got a person who is, says they're a Christian and, and yet there's no fruit, there's no fruit in their life and there are, and they're ignorant, it may be, it may be enough to say to that person,

Hey, um, can we talk and can we talk about what you think a Christian is? And having that conversation is a, uh, and maybe, maybe maybe try to begin a discipleship.

That was just, just what I was fixing to say, trying to start a discipleship relationship with that person could in fact be very valuable.

Um, Maybe they're just babies, spiritual babies. Yeah. Or, or, or even if, if they think they're believers, but they're not, the process of talking to them about the word may help them come to that conclusion.

I know so many people who thought they were Christians until they heard the gospel and realized they weren't. How many people do you know who think they're

Christians who can't articulate the gospel? That's a great question. How many people would say

I'm a Christian, but they don't know the gospel. That's one thing if somebody just isn't very articulate, but I'm saying they don't know the gospel.

How many times have you shared that or shared that at the fair? And they would say that, well, that's too hard of a question.

Yeah. We have a sign that we, that we, uh, we carved out of wood and the wood sign was, do you understand the gospel?

And we, we hang it up on our booth and so many people just, wow, that's just too hard of a question, but I'm a

Christian. It's like, yeah, but if you're a Christian, you should know the gospel. That's, that's Christianity 101.

Um, okay. Now, now I want to address that. Mary just put a comment. She said that she has a husband claims to be a

Christian. When I say something, he gets less than friendly. Okay. This, this may come to the point and I'm, and Mary, we will pray for you.

Let's write that down and commit to praying for Mary because that's a difficult situation. And I, and I certainly do not envy that.

I know that's hard, Mary. Um, and so I will simply say this to you.

The Bible does give some very specific, uh, direction for you as to how you were to live with your husband.

And, um, as far as, as, as demonstrating godliness in your life. And, um,

I pray for patience for you. I pray that he would recognize if he's not a believer that he's not, and that he would come to Christ.

Um, and, and, and again, having a conversation with him, maybe pray that God put somebody in his life that would be able to speak straight to him and, and he had not get offended by it.

So those are some things we have people in our life. I'm, I don't want to say who it is, but you know, specifically who I'm thinking about. There's a person in my life that I pray every day that God would put somebody in their life to speak to them, because even though they're in my life, they're not, they're not immediately around us.

And I pray God put somebody in this, put somebody in his life that will speak straight to him and that he will listen to.

So that's my, that's my prayer for you as well. Okay.

Uh, hopefully that was, that was helpful. All right. Let's move on to the next question. We're at 58.

Okay. So I've, I've been at the same church my entire life for 24 and a half years.

I know I'm young and about a year and a half ago, our pastor resigned. At first, our church approached me about the position and I wasn't interested.

However, over the last year and a half, I sense the Lord has been leading it, leading me to it.

How, what are your thoughts? Okay. This is interesting because, uh, part of the reason why he sent this email is because he knew my story.

My story is I grew up in the church that I'm the pastor of. I've been there since I was seven years old and I am now 45, almost,

I'll be 45 in April and, um, never been a member of any other church, never been a part of any other church.

And I was about 24 years old when I was going through the process of becoming the pastor.

I actually became the pastor when I was 25, because it was January of 2006.

I hadn't yet turned 26 years old. So, um, that's wild that, that, that it was that I was that young, but I was,

I was a husband and a new father to two adopted children. Actually, they weren't even adopted yet.

They were two foster children, but that was my life. And, um, a lot of things changed in 2000, uh, 2005 was when that happened.

Yeah. I was 25 years old. So you asked for advice, um, a couple of things, and this, this is just right out of the gate.

Um, you're very young. You need to, you need to get some men around you who are godly men that you can trust that can help you answer questions and guide you who aren't necessarily members of your church.

Now you need some godly men around you in your church. Um, hopefully you have elders in your church who will serve alongside of you, but maybe you don't, depending on the polity of the church.

It may be a single pastor model, but you need godly men around you that that's right away.

You need some godly men in your church, but you also need to find some pastors in churches in the, in the, in the surrounding area that, um, share your convictions, share your theology, some men, men that can help guide you and can be a sounding board for you and can give you the benefit of their wisdom because you are a young man.

Um, I was thankful for my professors in seminary. I went to a small seminary and the professors really took up a lot of time with us because it was a small, small school.

And in fact, Jennifer took classes with me. It wasn't, she wasn't trying to become a pastor.

No, no, no. But she took a few classes with me and actually did your associate degree with them.

They had an undergrad degree and she did that and graduated. Um, but the, the professor that took up so much time with us,

Dr. Jerry Powers, I quote him all the time. He's the, he's where I got the joke. Um, there's a great word for that baloney. Uh, that, that was him.

That's my carrying on the powers, uh, happy powers. Uh, he used to pray for us.

He would pray for us all the time because that was before we had foster kids.

That was, and we, we were, we were unable to have children for the first 12 years of our marriage, um, because of some medical issues.

And, um, and he would just pray for us. I mean, he would just pray for us and that was great.

So having men around you to do that is awesome. Okay. Thank you,

Corey. That's Corey at civically minded podcast, who is hilarious. And he's one of my friends who I talk to almost every day.

So love you, Corey. And fetus is out there. I didn't mention him. And he's out there. And Scott just mentioned a gun question.

Do you need to buy a 1911 for your 45th? Yes. Yes, baby. I'm turning 45 on April.

Well, I won't mention my birthday. Yeah. April 2nd is my birthday. Uh, I'm turning 45. You guys encourage her to buy me a 45.

That would be nice. Um, so, so, um, and Lindsay, yes, he let, he, he lets us call him fetus.

He loves it. Cause he's young. And this guy, this pastor here, he's also young. He does too.

All right. Uh, but, but it's not just your, it's not just being young. Uh, but it's also, this is the other issue is you're in the church you grew up in here.

Here's some specific things. Here's some, here's some benefits and detriments. I always say that the, the passage in scripture where Jesus said a prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown is my life verse because I, cause

I'm pastor in the church I grew up in. And so that is a, you know, kind of a, a joke because there are struggles with familiarity breeds contempt as they have, as they say.

So, uh, but here's the other side of it. Here is the side of it.

That is, that is great. You will have been there longer than so many other people.

You, you have, you have heritage and history in this church. If you grew up there. And that's one of,

I remember this conversation with one of the people in the church. One time we were talking about, I had just been the pastor for a little over a year and one of the elders said, well, you're new here.

And I said, I'm not new here. I've been here since I was seven. I'm new to the pastorate, but I'm not new to this church.

I've seen this church go through times of joy. I've seen go through times of pain. I've walked with these people in various stages of my life.

I have known this church since 1987. So there's a benefit to that.

And even though you'll be a new pastor, you won't be a new member of the church. So, so that's, that's my thought.

The negative part is there are going to be folks who maybe will try to take advantage of you because of your youth, maybe try to take advantage of you because of old friendships or because they've been there longer or that, or because they would say to you, hey, you know, you're, you know, you're just the, you're just a kid who grew up here.

You're not really anything special. I remember one of the jokes we used to say in seminary, all you have to do to be an expert is to be 20 miles from home, right?

Like, like if you're the hometown boy, nobody cares, but if you're, if you're out of town, then you're an expert, right? So people sometimes see you as the hometown boy and they see you as, as not being anything, anything important or any, and really as a ministry,

I know you're not anything important. Maybe I'm rambling a little bit, but the idea is still this. Don't let people, if people think that because you're familiar, that that means that you can't do the job.

That's not true. Take that familiarity and turn it around and use it in a, in a, in a positive way.

And it doesn't say here if you're married or not, but also what does your wife think if he's. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. There's, there's so much more and, and definitely would be willing to carry on more of a conversation.

If you have specific questions, you, this young man who wrote this email, if you have specific questions about your ministry and what you're going to be facing as a young man who may be taking the role of pastor in a church that you grew up in, just send me those questions individually and we can have a conversation offline.

Would love for that. All right. We're, we're very close to the end now. We're at a minute, we're an hour, five minute, five.

We're at an hour, five. Let's, let's, shortest question of the night, shortest question of the night, maybe the shortest answer.

How do I properly dispose of an old or worn out Bible? Okay. Uh, I actually emailed the, the, the answer to the person who wrote this, but I thought,

Hey, maybe some other people might be interested in knowing my answer to this question. How do you properly dispose of an old or worn down Bible?

Um, my, my answer number one is sort of a historic answer. Historically when scrolls, which were used to pass down the word of God, when they would reach a point where they were no longer usable, they would either be buried or burned, ceremonially buried or burned.

So that was sort of the traditional way to manage the scrolls. And this is why so many of them have been found buried because you know, things are buried.

Uh, but at the same time, um, my question back to you though, is why do you need to get rid of it?

Um, if it's, if it's too old to use in the sense that it's falling apart, the first question is, could it be rebound?

Is it just the outside? Maybe you're a person who writes notes in it, and maybe it's just so full of notes that you want to start over, keep it.

And I want to tell a quick story. My wife's grandmother, she's told the story before her, her parents were not

Christians growing up, but her, her grandmother was, her grandmother was a Christian and, and her mother gave her, her grandmother's

Bible that has hand written notes in it, handwritten notes in it so that it can, uh, uh, remind her what her grandmother wrote.

That's my, that's really the, the, the, the admonition. It's been encouraging me to want to do that for our kids.

Yeah. Save it for your children. Save it as a picture of, I loved the word of God and, and this is how

I handled it so much that it became this, it was well used and it, and it served me well.

I want you to have this. So that, that's one of the things I think can be, um, can be used as a, as an heirloom.

And, uh, so, so that, that was one of the things and your grandmother's

Bible. Yeah. Priceless. Has been a treasure. And you see, it's amazing to see the things that she wrote.

Yeah. Her understanding of the gospel, her understanding of the word. Those, those things have been. I actually took that the first couple of pages that she wrote and I went when my mom was dying and I read it to her from straight from her mom.

This is what the scriptures say. This is what she wrote. And, um, I don't know.

I'm just very, very thankful to have had that. Yeah, absolutely. And here's one other thought, as you were just saying that kind of just strung this thought up in my mind.

Um, Dr., uh, oh goodness. What is his name? Um, Howard Hendricks, Dr. Howard Hendricks in his book, living by the book is, is the title.

It's a great book on hermeneutics. They use it for teaching and some seminaries. Um, he said that he would get a new

Bible every few years, but he would keep the old ones because he wrote notes in his Bible and he would fill his

Bible with notes. And then he would get a new one and start writing new notes. And that way he could go back to years before and he could see the notes that he had.

And then he could compare them with the notes that he has now. And he, and he had that long line of, of study for the word.

So there's just a few thoughts. I don't think a Bible necessarily has to be, uh, has to be done away with.

If you have to destroy it there, you know, there, there are some respectful ways to do. So when I say destroy, if you have to discard it in some way, um, you know, maybe it's gotten drug through the mud or, or, you know, it's just completely ruined.

Um, but, but I would say just be, or, or like fetus just said, it's a passion translation and needs to be burned anyway.

Uh, uh, so, so those, those are our thoughts on, on that. Hopefully that's, that's helpful.

All right. Um, well, there's two more actually.

Um, I want to, I want to address this one first and then I'll, I'm going to end on the Sabbath question. So, so we'll do this one first at one 10, uh, uh, one, 10, 30, read that one.

Okay. As a Calvinist, how do you pray for family members to come to know Christ? Same way everybody else does.

I pray that God, I pray that God would open their heart to believe, and I pray that they would turn from their sin and trust in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And I think most people pray that way, whether you're Calvinist or not.

Um, I think the heart of the question though, maybe, maybe if I could dig in maybe to the mind of the person who sent in the question, it's like, why would you pray for somebody if God has already eternally decreed from the, from the foundation of the world who, and who he's not going to save?

The answer is simple. I don't know who that is. God, even if I wasn't a

Calvinist, God knows who's going to believe, but I don't. So I pray for the unbeliever.

I pray that God would open their heart. I pray that they would trust in Christ because I know that's the only way of salvation.

Right. And, and again, Castor Heber said, why pray if God has predestined everything? Because I don't know what he has predestined.

Why would Jesus pray thy will be done? Because he trusted in God's will.

I pray God's will be done because I trust in his will. But I also pray for healing when someone is sick, because the

Bible commands me to. I pray for salvation because the Bible tells me that I am to seek out and pray for these people.

I do what the Bible tells me to do. I don't know God's mind, but I know what he commands me to do.

And so I obey. It's as simple as that. Right. And, and, and again, the other side of the coin is what does the

Arminian pray? God, I know you're, I know you're doing everything that you can do because you do everything for everybody in absolute equal measure.

And no one receives any special grace from you, but everybody receives a smathering of providential peanut butter grace, which is a spirit all over everybody.

If that's the attitude, what are you praying for? I pray to God because I know he's the only one who can open the heart.

Peanut butter grace. Yeah. I've never heard that before. Oh, I said, I said it in my sermon a few weeks ago.

I said, some people think that God's grace is like peanut butter. He just smears it all over everybody, like when you put peanut butter on bread, right?

They don't see any particularity in God's grace. They don't see any, they don't see that God chooses to whom and how he will give his grace, but he just sort of smears it on everybody and it's up to them to respond.

That's the, the, the, the, this, this Arminian view of the, uh, of what's called prevenient grace.

Right. And, and, and that's, that's not my view. I don't think that's a biblical view.

All right. So as a Calvinist, how do you pray for family members to come to know Christ? I pray that God would open their heart to believe.

I pray that God would break their heart over their sin. I pray that they would, that, that Jesus would become more beautiful to them than anything in the world.

And, and that they would desire him more than they desire anything. That's what I pray. And that's how I pray. I pray that for our kids and for the

Sunday school class that I teach too. God would open their ears, their hearts to understand. I pray it every Sunday.

Every Sunday for the church. Yeah, I say, God, um, open their hearts to hear your word.

Um, this is a great question that I'm going to answer it before we go. Are there reputable support groups for elders, wives?

I don't know any groups that I can recommend to you.

WC 1, 2, 3, Jennifer, I'm going to ask you before I answer this. Do you know of any groups? Just the one that I know, know of personally here.

Well, that's what I was going to mention is that I don't know of any like national support groups or anything like that.

But what Jennifer does is she meets with a group of other pastors, wives, and they literally just reached out to one another a few years ago and met one another.

And I'm going to tell a quick story for about one of them, because there's two that became very close to you, Jennifer Bradshire and Don Lloyd.

When, when Jennifer was going through postpartum depression, which you've talked about on a podcast, it's not a secret with our last baby, you were going through postpartum depression and our nights were very difficult because Theo had a tongue tie.

He had, he was, he, he screamed and cried all the time. We had a very difficult first year with Theo and we were, it was nothing like any of our other children had been.

And Don, who was a pastor's wife, she came over to our house. She said, you guys go to sleep.

I'm going to spend the night staying up with the baby. And she stayed with us through the night.

And it was the most amazing gift, a night's rest. So, so here, here's here.

That was because you had met her. You guys had become friends and she recognized the need in your life and was, and came and loved on you.

So my answer to you is, I don't know of any support groups, but find some other pastors with wives who also need what you need and be that for one another.

We meet, we're trying to get back to it, but once a month, I mean, so it's not a huge commitment, but I'm so thankful to get to go.

I'm thankful that you. Yeah, I'm, I'm very thankful too. I'm very thankful too. Parker, Parker, the fetus.

By the way, he's not offended and it's not an offensive. It's I called him that one time in a joke and he loved it.

That's why I call him that. Parker asked this question. I have a serious question. Have you had to deal with members that miss church consistently for travel sports that came up in our

Bible studying? It was sort of spicy. Would you Matthew 18 them? Matthew 18 means what you're asking.

The question is, would you discipline them? And this goes along sort of with our final question.

It's amazing because the final question of the night is the question of my view of the

Sabbath. And the question is what's the best way to explain to children that we don't hold the traditional

Sabbath. We don't hold to Sunday as the Sabbath, but we do hold the

Sunday as the Lord's day. And if you want to know the distinction, I don't have the time tonight to give all of the distinctions, but I've done this debate on multiple occasions.

I did an informal debate with Matthew Everhard. I've done a formal debate with Rob Hamm. Both of them are available online.

So if you want to hear my arguments on the Sabbath, please go and listen to that. I think if you've got a family in your church that's consistently missing worship for sports, one, it's indicative of the problem in our culture, that our culture is now making

Sunday no longer a time where these things cease. Because when I was a kid, you didn't play ball on Sunday.

When I was a kid, they didn't have ball on Sunday. But now a lot of sports teams do.

In fact, somebody told me the other day that they wanted to participate in some event, but it was only happening at 10 o 'clock on a

Sunday morning. I was like, that's the only time during the week they could do it. They said, yeah, that was. And I forget what it was. I think it was like a shooting competition or something.

I was like, they do shooting competition on 10 o 'clock on a Sunday morning. What an odd time to do it. And I do think it's indicative of a bigger problem in the world.

And that is just not recognizing that there is a particular something different and distinct about the

Lord's day. I don't believe the Sunday is the Sabbath, but I do believe it's the Lord's day. I believe there's a distinction. If you want to know what my distinction is, go listen to my debates or send me an email and tell me you want me to do a golf cart ride.

I'd be happy to do that, but I'm not going to do it tonight. However, if I were talking to my children, because I'm going to go back to the question.

Stop. Get your brain together, Keith. Sorry. All right. For you, fetus, it could be a

Matthew 18 situation if in fact it is a consistent problem that keeps people away from the gathered worship.

And here's where it would really come out would be like in our church, if you're out of service, if you don't worship for a certain length of time, you fall under a default of your membership goes into a different status where you're not an active member anymore.

And then eventually you're not a member at all if you're not participating. So if it's so consistent that they're out that much, it might be by de facto happen, but that's probably not what's happening.

What's happening is they're missing three or four weeks at a time during baseball season or three or four weeks at a time during soccer, basketball, whatever the season is, whatever the sport is.

Is that an issue? Is it something that you should talk to them about? Yes. Is it something that should necessarily come up for church discipline?

That's really up to the elders and our church. It would probably be more of a one -on -one conversation that would result hopefully in a discussion about the value of the

Lord's day, not necessarily the thread of Matthew 18. So hopefully that makes sense.

Not everything is a discipline. Not everything is about discipline. Sometimes it's about education.

Sometimes it's about helping people grow in their love for the Lord and the things of God. So maybe that's helpful.

Shifting priorities. Shifting priorities. What's the best way to explain to your children that we don't hold the traditional

Sabbath again? I recommend please go listen to my debates so that you'll understand what my position is on the

Sabbath. But since you're asking, I will say this. When we talk about the

Sabbath, we talk about the Sabbath in a type and fulfillment view that the

Sabbath was given to the people of Israel as a sign of the covenant of Moses.

And we see that in Scripture. That is very clearly taught in Scripture. And that pointed to Jesus Christ.

Colossians chapter 2 says that the ceremonies and the Sabbaths were a shadow, and the substance was

Christ. Somebody said I got destroyed by Matthew Everhart on the topic of the Sabbath. I don't agree. Even he said he thought

I did a good job. But you can have your own opinion. You've got your opinion. I've got the truth. So, okay. And so in regard to this issue,

I would talk to my children about what the Sabbath represents and how we find our rest in Christ. That's how I would talk to them about it because I am not a

Sabbatarian. That's a simple answer for you. I would talk about what the

Sabbath is meant to represent. Okay. So I think that brings us to the end.

Any more questions? Thank you, Mary. Yes. Thank you,

Mary. Let me say this. I'm so thankful. We get questions every single week.

Enough questions to fill a show for an hour and 22 minutes. I mean, daggone.

Thank you. Yeah. You guys are just the best. We're very thankful that you actually care and want to come and be a part of this.

Let's go over this again. What is this word? Amaraldi. Okay. As we close.

That they probably know. Okay. Do you guys know? I'll give you. Okay. We're going to have fun. I'm going to play a quick video during this video.

If you know what an Amaraldi is. Don't Google it. Do not Google it. If you know what an

Amaraldi is, put it in the comments. I'm going to play a quick gospel video while this is playing.

Just give me a chance to get my breath. I want you to tell me if you know what an Amaraldi is. Hey guys,

I just want to quickly say thank you for watching this episode. And if you're enjoying it, please hit the thumbs up button.

If you're not enjoying it, hit the thumbs down button twice. Also, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the channel.

It really helps us out. And some of you've asked about how to support the channel. If you'd like to support us, you can go to buymeacoffee .com

slash your Calvinist and leave a donation. Most importantly, we want to make sure that everybody who hears this podcast, hears the gospel.

The word gospel means good news. And that good news has to be preceded by some bad news.

And the bad news is this, that we are all sinners. Sin is breaking God's law. So we stand guilty before the

Lord of the universe. But the good news is God sent his son into the world to pay the penalty for everyone who would believe in him.

Jesus came into the world, lived a perfect life, and he died a substitutionary death for everyone who will believe.

And he calls us all to repent of our sin, to turn from our unbelief and trust in him as Lord and Savior.

And if you've never done that, I encourage you to do so today. Now back to the show. Oh, wait, wait.

Okay. All right. So an Amaraldian. What is an Amaraldian? Okay. I don't think,

Arminian lizard. Somebody says Arminian lizard. Okay. Who said it was a four -point

Calvinist? Let's see. Somebody said that. There it is. Joshua Neece was the first one to get the answer.

That's right. It is a person who would otherwise hold to a Calvinist perspective, but typically would deny limited atonement.

Those people are typically called Amaraldians. Amaraldians. And when Jennifer earlier was reading through the questions and preparing for tonight, she goes, she said, what's a

Amaraldian? No, you said it. You said it's so funny because I'm on the other end of it.

Yes. You said, what's an Amarathibian? Yes. And I just started laughing.

I said, what are you talking about? She said this word, Amarath, I said, it's Amaraldian. But to her credit, they didn't spell it right.

The person who emailed it. So it's okay. It's okay. All right, guys. This is the fun part.

Again, just telling you guys that we're thankful for you. Look forward to doing this every Friday night. We're going to try to start doing it at nine o 'clock as much as we can, but always be on the lookout for the time, because if it ever does have to change the 10, because we just won't be home in time or whatever, just keeping out for that.

And we certainly won't be doing it on the 28th on the night of our daughter's wedding. So be praying for that.

Be praying for us. Also, last thing. Don't forget that we have a special going on right now with 1689

Cigars. They've got my cigars. My denominational cigars are available at 1689

Cigars. I forgot to mention that earlier. I wanted to mention it. So go check that out.

You can get a Superior Theology. I'm sorry.

I'm reading comments. Superior Theology. What? Blow off house chores for this. Oh, well, praise the

Lord. We're so glad to have you with us. All right, guys, we are going. Yeah. And the Methodist Cigar, it's a flavored cigar because they got a little sugar in the tank.

What? What is your daughter's name? Ashley. Ashley Ann Foskey is her name.

Now she's going to be Ashley Butler. Did she tell you if she's going to keep her maiden name as her middle name or is she going to be

Ashley Ann Butler? I don't know. We didn't talk about that.

Jennifer kept her maiden name as her middle name. So that's interesting. I wonder if she'll keep

Foskey in the middle. So will she be AFB or AAB?

Or Ashley Foskey hyphen Butler. Oh, no, no, we don't hyphen nothing because the two become one flesh, not a hyphenated flesh.

All right. That's my thoughts on that. All right. Well, thank you guys again. We're going to close out tonight.

God bless y 'all. We love you. And we'll see you next week. And I feel my troubles all melt away.

Oh, it's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey.

It's Ann Bowtie's Laughs Till Sunrise.

It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey. He's not like most

Calvinists. He's nice. Your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey, striving for superior theology and denominational unity, one joke at a time.